Can Cher save Logo?

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Liz Smith

‘Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example,” wrote Mark Twain.

The one and only Cher is reportedly closing a deal with the Logo Network to produce — and perhaps to appear — in a series set in the early ’60s. That was the beginning of her amazing career with Sonny Bono.

We’ll see if this happens. Whatever! It has to be better than the programming that Logo currently foists on its audience, which does little to respectfully represent gay, lesbian and transgender people. Logo could make an important, serious difference, but it has so far chosen not to. Maybe Cher will be its salvation.

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“Solid but unspectacular” went the Hollywood headline on how Tom Cruise’s movie “Jack Reacher” has performed so far. Some industry insiders say “solid” is not enough to guarantee the making of a second Reacher movie or a new Cruise franchise in the manner of all his “Mission Impossible”-type films.

Don’t despair — those of you who love author Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” characters and stories. Don’t despair — those of you who got over the physical “inappropriateness” of Tom as Reacher, and enjoyed the movie anyway.

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What’s an old girl like me doing writing about a book titled “Saying Good-bye to Your Prostate?”

I confess, I don’t know.

I am always being told to stick to show biz and not to have any political or social opinions. But my life isn’t all “entertainment,” nor is yours.

This young guy, Jamie MacKenzie, told me he’d written an outside-the-box journal on how to beat prostate cancer and laugh. Remembering the serious book a few years back by the excellent historian Michael Korda, I recalled there were very few laughs on this subject.

Now I’ve looked at Jamie’s book and he transcends himself, reminding us that 85 percent of buyers of a book like this are female. They buy it for the men in their lives. The book is reassuring, irreverent and short with big readable type and humorous drawings by comic Lisa Schwartz. The author says men get prostate cancer 33 percent more than women get breast cancer, but if caught early, prostate cancer has a 97 percent cure rate.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s a writer with personal knowledge who believes PSA testing begins for men at 35, not 50.

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